


Anything But Routine

by tarysande



Series: Anything But Routine: DA/ME Universe [1]
Category: Dragon Age, Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dragon Age/Mass Effect crossover, Gen, Mass Effect 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 07:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarysande/pseuds/tarysande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Commander Amelle Shepard sends a team to investigate an ancient distress call, she is faced instead with a very unexpected ghost from her past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything But Routine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [w0rdinista (Niamh_St_George)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niamh_St_George/gifts).



> So, I ran a follower giveaway on tumblr and promised fic for the winners. The first winner was w0rdinista, and she asked me to play with a concept we'd toyed with a few months back. Some of you will be familiar with our long Dragon Age AU, From the Ashes. We started wondering what would happen if we ported our Hawke sisters into the Mass Effect universe and made them Shepards. What would stay the same? What would be different? How could we bring other Dragon Age characters/elements into the Mass Effect universe? This is the... beginning of that journey. This story stands alone, but if we continue on with it (as we may), many other Dragon Age familiar faces will make appearances.
> 
> You don't need to be familiar with our Hawkes to understand this story, by the by, although there are some easter eggs hidden in here for the followers of FtA.

It was supposed to be a routine mission. As routine as anything they’d come across since Eden Prime turned into the desperate hunt for a rogue turian Spectre who could very possibly have the entire fate of the galaxy in his back-stabbing hands, anyway. So routine, Commander Amelle Shepard had decided to use it as a team-building exercise rather than going planetside herself, sending Williams, Alenko and Vakarian down in the Mako together to neutralize the ancient distress call and bring back any valuable tech or minerals they might find, while she stayed on the ship and prepared for the next big op.

“Commander?” Joker asked over the comm. “The lieutenant just called for a pickup. ETA eight minutes. He said they found something unusual on the surface and asked to be patched through to you.”

“Good,” Amelle replied, eyes still tracking over the scrolling mission info on the datapad she held. After they’d found Therum already crawling with geth, she didn’t want to risk running blind into something similar on Feros. Intel on Saren’s movements, and the movements of his geth allies, was patchy at best, and she couldn’t help feeling they were constantly running about three steps behind. If only she could—wait. “Sorry, ‘something unusual’? Not sure I like the sound of that. Put him through, Joker.”

A moment later, the tenor of the communications crackle changed, and she heard the howl of the planet’s winds and the faint rumble of the Mako in the background. “What’s up, LT?”

“Commander? Sorry, ma’am, I don’t know where your intel came from, but it was anything but routine down here.”

A surge of adrenaline almost brought her to her feet, but she suppressed it when she realized of course nothing could be done from her current location. “You all okay?”

“Yes, ma’am, though Vakarian’s not happy about the hits the Mako took; says it’ll take some time to get her back in fighting form.”

No different than any other time she brought the Mako back from groundside missions, then. Vakarian did tend to hover over the tank; he seemed to have taken on the running and maintenance of it as something of a personal project. Not that she was complaining, since the Alliance certainly hadn’t sprung for a designated tech, and Vakarian was damned good. “Hits? Report, Alenko, and keep it concise.”

“The distress signal wasn’t ancient; it appears to have been a trap, or a lure. And we weren’t the only ones who showed up to spring it. By the time we arrived on the scene, another ship was already there, and being pummeled by a thresher maw. A really big thresher maw.”

“A ship?” Amelle frowned. “One our scanners didn’t pick up?”

“Sleek little thing—or it was, anyway. Don’t know why the scanners missed it, but it was still holding its own, throwing everything it had against the maw, even though it’d been grounded by a few well-placed hits of acid. It distracted the maw long enough for us to take it out.”

“Survivors?”

“Aye ma’am. One woman. The captain. The rest of her crew—they didn’t make it.”

“And her ship?”

“I don’t think it’s salvageable, but she doesn’t want to leave. Says she’ll take her chances.”

Amelle set the datapad down and leaned back in her chair, running a hand through her short curls. “I don’t understand, LT. We might not be back at the Citadel right away, but we’ll get there eventually and she’s got to have a better chance of survival on the _Normandy_ than roughing it on a desert planet infested with thresher maws in the middle of nowhere.”

“I said as much, ma’am. The thing is…” Alenko’s voice dropped, until she had to strain to hear him over the wind. “It’s _you_ , Commander. She says she doesn’t want to be on the same ship as _you._ She was all set to come with us, and then Williams mentioned your name. Her whole demeanor changed so fast Vakarian almost pulled a pistol on her. ‘Amelle Shepard, Hero of the Skyllian Blitz?’ she asked. ‘Amelle Shepard of the Systems Alliance? The one raised on Mindoir?’ When I said you were the only Shepard I knew, she insisted she wasn’t sharing close quarters with ‘Amelle fucking Shepard’—her words, ma’am—picked up her duffel and headed back to her ship.”

“I—” Amelle shook her head, even though she was alone and Alenko couldn’t possibly see it. After more than a decade in the military, a person was bound to leave a few ruffled feathers in their wake, but on a good day Amelle would never have described herself as a woman with a long list of enemies. Saren, maybe. The batarians whose plot she’d been in the right place at the right time to stop on Elysium, if any were still around to be pissed about it. Certainly not random captains of small scouting vessels. “I guess I’d better come talk to her myself.”

So much for routine.

#

Joker was not particularly keen on landing the _Normandy_ for a chat with a (possibly angry, possibly delusional) stranger. When she pointed out the vast sandy clearing, he replied with, “To the left or right of the _giant dead thresher maw_ , Commander?”

“Right, if you would,” she said, straight-faced, though she wasn’t exactly thrilled, either. Still, she’d wracked her brain for clues—for anyone who might hate her enough to refuse to share her ship—and nothing had surfaced. She considered it as she strode through the CIC, took the elevator alone, and entered the cargo hold. The Mako’s big, empty berth loomed at her, and on the other side of the room Wrex glanced up from the shotgun he was cleaning long enough to give her an almost-respectful, “Shepard.”

Settling her helmet on her head, she waited for the hatch to open. Evidently Williams was already within the idling Mako; the tank began its slow crawl forward as Amelle strode out to meet Alenko and Vakarian. Alenko saluted. Vakarian gave her a helmeted nod. 

“Sitrep?”

“She disappeared into her ship and hasn’t come back,” Alenko explained. “No other sign of maw activity. For now. Vakarian disabled the distress beacon. Too late for her ship, but at least no one else’ll end up bait for thresher maws. I’m afraid we’re going to have to report a complete loss to Rear Admiral Kahoku, ma’am. These were definitely his people.”

Nodding, Amelle glanced toward the wreckage of what had once been a nice little vessel, but was now an acid-sprayed, moldering heap, smoking dangerously. Sand swirled around them with enough force to scour, pinging constantly against the ablative plate of her hardsuit and obscuring her visuals; in the breaks between gusts, she saw the thresher maw’s corpse already buffeted and bracketed by little piles of the reddish dirt. Smaller lumps littered the ground around them, sandy cairns for Kahoku’s dead. “Well. Guess I’ve got to talk to her then.”

“Is that—you sure about that, Commander?” She still wasn’t entirely acclimated to the strange double-thrum of Vakarian’s voice, but she’d heard enough worry in her life to be pretty damned certain of his. “That ship’s too—”

“Nice?” Amelle finished. “Invisible, even to the _Normandy_ ’s advanced sensor capabilities? Yeah. Still. It’s a death sentence to leave her out here, and I want to know—” _why the hell she’s holding a grudge against me_ “—I’ve done everything possible to save her from it. This place has taken enough already. I don’t want to leave another body down here, living or dead.”

Vakarian was already shaking his head. “Call it a hunch, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this one. For obvious reasons, we didn’t get many pirates passing through the Citadel, but I’d put a thousand credits on the dubious legality of this ship and its tech.”

“Slavers?” Alenko asked, shooting a swift glance Amelle’s way. Of course. He was familiar with her history; perhaps Vakarian hadn’t yet read up on it. Or he was thinking of the puzzle and not the emotional ramifications.

“Not likely,” Vakarian said. “Not a ship that size. No room for, uh, living cargo.”

Amelle closed her eyes, and wished her deep inhale didn’t bring with it the memory of smoke. Even a dozen years later, the mere mention of pirates—of slavers—was enough to unsettle her, to bring a prickle of rage and grief and loss to the surface. Most days, Mindoir was only a bad dream, worlds away from the life she’d made for herself—painstakingly _built_ for herself—afterward. She’d put her family to rest in a little box with a very tight lid, and when thoughts of them surfaced she tried to remember how much they’d laughed instead of the blows that had taken them away from her one after another over the course of that one hellish night. Father first. Then Carver. Mother. Kiara had been last. Kiara had been worst; they’d almost made it to their secret spot—the one they used when they were hiding from Carver or chores or homework—when the bullet hit, throwing her sister face-first into the dew-damp underbrush. Even in the dark, the blood had been so red. So ugly. So final.

( _“Run, Mely,” her sister screamed, blood pouring from the wound in her shoulder. Amelle’s hands were hot and slick with it, but years spent poring over her father’s copy of_ Gray’s Anatomy _didn’t a doctor make. Her sister was already too pale, her pulse too thready. She was still strong enough to push Amelle away, though. Still strong enough to stagger to her feet and head toward the aliens chasing them. “Run! And don’t look back! Don’t you even think about looking back!”_

 _“Kiara, no,” Amelle pleaded, her voice breaking. Her heart breaking. “Kiri, please, come with me.”_ )

The passage of almost thirteen years hadn’t dimmed the memory of her sister, ghostly and desperate in the moonlight, rising to her feet and turning their father’s old revolver on her. “I’d rather kill you myself than let them have you, Mely. I’ll do it if you don’t run. _Now._ ” Kiara’s hand hadn’t even shook; Amelle had never seen her so certain of anything. “ _Go!_ ”

So Amelle had run. With her sister’s blood still hot on her hands and tears running unchecked down her face, she’d run, and she’d hid, and three days later the Alliance had found her half-delirious with thirst and exhaustion and fear, her hands still caked with failure.

Her faceplate kept Amelle from rubbing at the bridge of her nose, but the headache was a familiar one; it always accompanied unwelcome trips down that particular branch of memory lane. “She wasn’t batarian? You’re sure?”

“Certain, ma’am.”

Rolling her shoulders to rid herself of the last uncomfortable memories, Amelle cracked her knuckles and headed toward the downed ship. Great. Just what the day was missing. Pirates. Amelle just _loved_ pirates.

#

The fallen ship was running on backup generators, but still had power enough to run life support. Amelle followed the flickering emergency floor lights toward the bridge, but it was empty. The asari pilot had been laid out carefully, though nothing could be done about the violet blood pooled beneath her. Even with her eyes closed, she looked surprised. They found three other corpses—another asari and two human women—as they made their way from the bridge to engineering. All had been respectfully tended to, much the same as the pilot.

Amelle didn’t need Tali’s intimate knowledge of ships to know this one was beyond saving, no matter how much eezo and scrap metal were provided. Amelle shivered and pressed on. The door to engineering was open just wide enough for a slim body to pass through, frozen in the same death throes of the rest of the ship. Inside, the drive core was dark, lit only by the sparks of fried wiring. The silence was deafening, as only a dying ship’s silence could be. 

The ship’s captain unfolded herself from beneath a panel that had obviously been pulled aside in haste and rose to face them. Tall and lean, she cocked a hip and crossed her arms over her chest as if they weren’t three heavily armed strangers and she without a weapon handy. Command sat easily on her shoulders, as easily as she wore the top-of-the-line custom light armor, as easily as her icy grey eyes scoured them without so much as a brow-twitch to help indicate what was going on behind them.

Even with the addition of a deep old scar bisecting her face from brow, across nose, to the opposite corner of her mouth, Amelle would have known her anywhere.

Except, of course, that her sister was _dead_.

Amelle inhaled sharply as she removed her own helmet, her eyes burning with tears she refused to shed. An explanation. There _had_ to be an explanation. She just couldn’t begin to fathom what it might be. The captain’s expression didn’t shift. Not even a hint of emotion played around her cool eyes, and the full lips remained compressed in an impassive line. Amelle reached for her voice, failed to find it, swallowed hard and managed, “Ki— _Kiara_? How are you—how is this _possible_? What are you—where have you _been_?”

“You know her, Commander?” Alenko asked, sounding only a fraction less surprised than Amelle felt.

“Commander Amelle Shepard,” the woman—Kiara, somehow it was _Kiara_ —made the words sound like the worst kind of insult. Especially her rank. Amelle was certain she’d never heard the word _commander_ uttered with such complete and utter derision. “You cut your hair.” The corner of her mouth turned up, but it wasn’t any kind of smile Amelle had ever seen on her sister’s face before. Kiara had never been so cold. Kiara had never been _cruel._ “Really brings out your freckles.”

Reflexively, Amelle reached for the shorn ends of her hair. She stopped herself halfway. She wasn’t the same girl, all long curls and innocent dreams, where the worst thing that had ever happened to her was the embarrassment of braces in a family full of perfect teeth or having homework on a Friday night. She was _Commander_ Amelle Shepard—no derision—N7 special ops, _first human Spectre_ , freckles or no freckles. Sister or no sister. She set her shoulders and lifted her chin. 

“We know who she is,” Vakarian drawled. “You’re the unknown quantity.”

“Am I unknown? Damn. Thought my reputation was better than that. Or worse. More far-reaching, anyway.” She executed an elaborate, mocking bow, revealing the blood-red, stylized sigil of a bird on her right arm. Amelle had never seen it before. “Captain Kiara Carver. I’d add ‘at your service’ but I’m not. And do not intend to be.”

Amelle went cold as her stomach dropped somewhere into the vicinity of her ankles. Almost as swiftly, hot anger followed in cold’s wake, bringing with it the familiar crackle of biotic energy flaring blue and bright at her fingertips. “Shepard,” Amelle spat. “You’re Kiara _Shepard_. How _dare_ you use my brother’s name—”

“Our brother.”

“Carver was my _twin_.”

Kiara’s eyes narrowed, and when she spoke her voice was so low and dangerous Amelle saw Vakarian shift his weapon to keep her in his sights. Amelle waved him down with a short jerk of her hand. If Kiara noticed, she didn’t give any indication of it. “You think that means I loved him less? You think that means I don’t mourn him?” Tossing her head, Kiara leaned back against the console. “He was a fighter. Before they got him, he took down three of those four-eyed bastards armed with nothing more than a baseball bat and a kitchen knife. _Shepard_ is a name for the kind of hero who gets lauded on the vids, and that’s sure as hell not me. Taking his name seemed a fitting tribute.”

“Pirates _killed_ him. How the hell could you think he’d approve?”

“Slavers killed him,” Kiara snarled, eyes flashing with sudden fire. “ _Batarian_ slavers.” Incongruously, Kiara reached for the long braid hanging down her back to her hips. As she pulled the plait over her shoulder, Amelle saw it was fed by dozens of tiny, haphazard braids woven at random amongst the long fall of her red hair. The expression on her sister’s face shifted from anger to something almost proud. “One braid for every sack of shit batarian I’ve killed.”

“You’re the Bloody Hawk of the Skyllian Verge,” Vakarian breathed, his voice wavering in a strange way. Amelle almost thought it was admiration; it certainly didn’t sound like horror. “That’s where I’ve heard that name.”

Kiara’s lips pulled wide in a mirthless smile. “Good to know all the PR counts for something after all. You have a problem with that, C-Sec? We’re a long fucking way from your jurisdiction now.”

“I’m not C-Sec—”

“Bullshit,” Kiara interrupted, cutting at the air with a dismissive hand. “I’d know those colors anywhere, even if you weren’t telegraphing it with every move. I can spot a C-Sec officer at a hundred paces, turian, and be gone before he even realizes I saw him.”

“—Anymore,” Vakarian finished drily.

On the other side of Amelle, Alenko said, “All the Shepards died on Mindoir. It’s in the report.”

“Oh, _gold star_ for you,” Kiara sneered. “And a report’s never been wrong? That what they teach you in basic training, kid? Because there’s a whole galaxy of shit out there that’ll never get told true in an Alliance brief. You hear about the attack on Gwaren colony? Kirkwall settlement?” She waited until Alenko shook his head in the negative. “You sure as shit didn’t, and you know why? Because the boatloads of batarians that wanted to raze those settlements to the ground and take every damned human in them for slaves never made their destinations.”

“It’s, uh, why she’s called the _Bloody_ Hawk,” Vakarian explained. “No batarian is safe. The Hawk’s been active in the Skyllian Verge for years, taking out every batarian stupid enough to cross her, but she’s never seen battle with a Council ship.”

“Even the ones who came looking for me, and looking for a fight,” Kiara said. “I’m rather proud of myself, to tell you the truth.” She ran a hand down the sparking console. “And then my poor girl was taken down by deceit and a goddamned thresher maw.”

Amelle, having finally wrangled her racing throughs—disbelief? Relief? Fear?—into something like order, said, “If you—what _happened_?”

“You mean why didn’t I die back on Mindoir? Good question. Thought I would, when I took that bullet and led them away from you.” A muscle jumped in her jaw. “Funny story about that bullet. Turns out it wasn’t batarian. One of those fucking Alliance marines from the garrison shooting blind. How’s that for irony?” She shook her head, the braid sliding over her shoulder again to fall against her back. Amelle kept staring at the braids. Fifty? A hundred? Two? She couldn’t begin to guess. “The batarians got to me first, though, and didn’t mind patching me up. It was only my shoulder, after all. Nothing some medi-gel couldn’t fix. One of their leaders said I had a pretty face. By human standards. Could always get more for the pretty ones. Don’t think he thought I was so pretty later. His scream, though? Damn if his scream wasn’t _beautiful._ ”

Amelle swallowed hard, her imagination filling in too many blanks. Poor Talitha lived behind her eyelids when she blinked. Amelle had helped her, but she didn’t have the first idea what to do with—for?—her own sister. 

Kiara glared a silent challenge at them and then held her hands wide. “Really? None of you has the balls to ask?” She slashed her hand through the air near her face, echoing the path of her scar. “Turns out I was a bad investment. Didn’t do what I was supposed to. Pretended _really_ well, though, until I could turn on my owner. This was my punishment for failing to run away fast enough.” She ran a finger lightly down one of the tiny plaits. “My reward was the first half dozen of these.” Her smile pulled at the scar. “Medi-gel wasn’t quite as effective on my face, and by the time I made it to safety, the damage was already done.”

“I don’t understand,” Alenko began. “Why—why the grudge against your sister?”

“I don’t have a sister,” Kiara snapped. “Thought I did. Imagine my surprise when her face was plastered all over every bloody vidscreen I came across after Elysium. I sent a dozen messages. Even tried to see her once, but was stopped by a squad of Alliance goons. Message received.”

“Actually,” Amelle began slowly, as realization hit, “it wasn’t. Received, I mean. After—after Elysium, after the Star of Terra, I was _inundated_ with messages. Dozens from people claiming to be long-lost family members. A woman broke into the base; got as far as my quarters before she was stopped. She told the guards she was my sister. Turned out she was an assassin on the batarian payroll. Everything went through HQ after that, and all false claims of family relationships were discarded. I—I knew my family was dead. I told them that much. They stopped bothering me with yeas and nays.”

“You had no proof I was dead.”

Amelle lifted her hands, holding them wide. “Your blood was all over me, Kiri.”

Kiara’s lips twitched distastefully at the use of the old nickname. “Blood’s not a body.”

“The batarians didn’t _leave_ bodies! I knew you were as dead as Mom and Dad and Carver, and I didn’t get to bury them, either.” Amelle closed her hands into fists at her sides. “I—you think I went easily? I refused to leave until they let me look for you. I thought—I thought if _anyone_ could’ve survived—I retraced every step we took that night, with this grim marine at my side who barely spoke. I found Dad’s revolver, empty. I found your blood on the path. There was… oh God, there was so much blood. The marine said, ‘No one survived this, kid. I’m sorry.’”

Joker’s voice crackled over her comm, and Amelle sprang to instant attention. “Uh, Commander, we’ve got hostiles incoming.”

“Another maw?”

“Try a Geth Dropship shitting Armatures. Oh, and a Colossus. Just for fun.”

“Why would the geth be _here_?”

Kiara frowned, her teeth worrying at her bottom lip in a gesture so familiar it made Amelle’s gut lurch and twist. “Probably following me. I wasn’t really hiding my trail.”

“You?” Vakarian asked. “Why would the geth be interested in a pirate known for hunting _batarians_ in the Skyllian Verge? Those things aren’t connected.”

“Because the geth are working with an asshole Spectre named Saren Arterius,” Kiara retorted. “And Arterius doesn’t like me much. ‘Course the feeling’s pretty fucking mutual. He likes to think of the Verge as his personal playground, only he doesn’t care who gets shit on while he’s busy playing Council cowboy. He hurt some friends of mine just because he could. I hurt him back. Because _I_ could. Evidently he’s upped our game of cat and mouse. Guess he’s not any happier about his toys getting broken—or stolen—than I am seeing my friends beat to a pulp because they happened to disagree with his murder-is-a-valid-form-of-diplomacy code.”

“Commander?” Joker said, more insistently. “Not to rush you or anything, but we’ve got half a dozen Armatures, a Colossus and yes, oh, there we go, now the scanner’s picking up another maw. So. Now might be a great time to think about getting the hell off this rock?”

“On our way, Joker.”

Kiara half-turned away from them, brushing their presence away with a wave. “Feel free to show yourselves out. I trust you remember the way.”

“You’re not staying here,” Amelle said. It wasn’t a question. 

Kiara raised an incredulous brow. “This is my ship. These are—were—my people. I’m not leaving. I just need to boost the power long enough to get a message out, and I’ve got friends who’ll avenge me.”

“You’re just going to lie down and die?” Amelle said, tossing her head angrily. “How about a little vengeance of your own? You want to hunt down Saren Arterius? Come with me. I’m the best goddamned chance you’ve got to get him in your sights.”

Kiara uttered a short, bitter bark of laughter. “You’re Alliance, _Commander_ Amelle Shepard. They are not going to let you pit yourself against a Council Spectre, no matter what he’s done.”

“And you,” Amelle spat, “are behind the curve. Arterius attacked Eden Prime. I was there. You know who the Council ‘pits’ against rogue Spectres? Other Spectres. In this case, me.” Amelle didn’t go so far as to raise her pistol against her sister—hell, she still remembered what it had felt like to look down the barrel of a weapon trained on her by her own blood—but she did raise a hand, letting the biotic glow flare to life. Throw might do it. Lift, if she could manage; it was a new skill and she hadn’t practiced much with it yet. “I doubt you respect Council authority, but if you’ve pissed off Saren Arterius? You have information relevant to my investigation and I’m going to need you to come with me. Whether you care to or not.”

Something almost like a real smile overspread Kiara’s face, warming her eyes for just a heartbeat. “Are you just dying to say ‘we can do this the hard way or the easy way’? You have that look.”

“ _Commander_ ,” Joker insisted.

“On our way, Joker,” Amelle repeated, each word clipped and short as a bullet firing. 

“Yeah, you said that five minutes ag—”

Amelle cut the channel, turning to her squad, taking the calculated risk of putting her back to her sister. _Trust me_ , she thought. _Trust me like I’m trusting you._

“Alenko, you take point. Vakarian, on his six with your rifle. We’ll be right behind you.” She sent a slantwise glance at Kiara. “Both of us. Go.”

Vakarian looked like he was going to argue—she’d have to talk to him about that later—but didn’t. He looked back once over his shoulder and she jerked her head in a _get out of here_ nod.

When they were alone, Kiara asked, “Are you really a Spectre?”

“Are you really a pirate?”

Kiara huffed a breath, shaking her head, almost amused. Then she reached behind the console and pulled out a pair of guns—a sniper rifle and a mean looking little pistol—that had been cached there all along. She slid the pistol into the holster at her hip, but before she could break down the rifle, Amelle asked, “You good with that?”

It had been more than a dozen years since Amelle last saw her sister’s grin, and yet as soon as it broke across Kiara’s face it was as though she’d last seen her sister _yesterday_. “No,” Kiara declared. “I’m _great_ , actually.”

“Lovely,” Amelle drawled. “You and Vakarian can have a pissing contest later. For now, take my six and wait for me to pick them up and throw them. Like fish in a barrel. Or like the cans Dad used to line up for us on the fence.”

Kiara froze, a hint of confusion—grief?—creasing her brow and the corners of her eyes. “You… want me behind you?”

Amelle lifted an accusatory brow. “You going to shoot me in the back?”

“No,” Kiara said gravely. “But… but this isn’t over, Amelle.”

“Damn right it isn’t,” Amelle retorted, allowing herself just a moment of relief, of hope. “I’d say it’s just beginning.”


End file.
